of individual americans. and we all remember the wonderful commentbybenfranklin-- i will paraphrase it -- but essentially ben franklin said that if you give up your liberty to have security, you really don't deserve either. and so we owe it to the hardworking men and women in the intelligence community to work closely with them to find that kind of balance that ben franklin was talking about, and we can help them do it by conducting robust oversight, roy bust oversight -- robust oversight over the work that's being done there so that members of the public can have confidence in the important work being done by the men and women in the intelligence community and confidence that, as we protect our security at a dangerous time, we are also protecting the individual liberties of our people. now, mr. president, the story with respect to this debate really begins in early america when the colonists were famously subjected to a lot of taxes by the british government. the american colonists thought thathat this was unfair because they were not represented in the british parliament, and they

with nebraskasenatorbennelsonwho is retiring after two terms. >>> retiring senatornebraskabentellme sop. years that began with the 2003 recount and reended with re-election of president obama. if you could think of the adjective to describe these years what would it be? >> clearly interesting. challenging. sometimes totally frustrating. but also full of opportunities for the country. there was some good times during the twelve years laced together with some that weren't so good. 9/11, the anthrax scare. there were positive things as well, the election of president obama, i thought it was a positive statement for the country and moving forward in a way that we have tried to move forward out of face -- fiscal as by now we came out of a fiscal as by during the times. it's a hodgepodge during at love different things. i couldn't imagined to have been here during a better time. >> let me get deeper and ask you tell me what was the high point of the entire service? >> the high point was when we can work together. and maybe the single event that process that would embody that was the gang of f

. before the election we had a hearing to -- barry on write-in votes. held bysenatorbeninflorida and ohio. we are testament about the renewed effort in many states, denied millions of americans access to the ballot box and voter identification laws. i was concerned these barriers would stand between millions of americans an about box. what we saw during the election showed that we are right to be concerned. purges of voter rolls, restrictions on voter registration, limitations under early voting, which in previous elections in april millions to vote. lead to unnecessary problems on election day. you had owners confusing requirement, competition in places like pennsylvania. arizona, texas, south carolina. throughout the country, political advertising, robocall's were so confusion and suppressed the vote. just because millions of americans successfully overcame a abusive practices in order to cast their ballot, that doesn't make these practices right. does not justify the burdens that prevented millions more from being able to vote. barriers are reminders of the time when discrimin